The Abbot of Shaolin Temple Wants to Go Open Source

"Abbot, Brother."

Tianming dashed into the Mahavira Hall, brimming with excitement.

However, this time, he was not met with welcoming gazes, but rather with faces showing great displeasure.

Again?

Who is it this time?

Damn it, he had indeed mentioned that the Shaolin Temple lacked a sense of deterrence in recent years and asked him to keep an eye out for disciples with good talent.

Xuankong, who had mastered the Arhat Gong, had undoubtedly made him very happy.

Xuancheng, who had mastered the Great Strength Vajra Palm, had also kept him pleased for a while.

Xuanci, who had mastered the Great Strength Vajra Palm, had left him beaming; with these three little ones, the future of the Shaolin Temple seemed secure.

Especially Xuancheng, who would be more than enough to serve as the face of the temple for the next thirty years.

Then, once the momentum of Xuankong and Xuanci caught up—especially once Xuankong cultivated the Arhat Golden Body—the next heads of the Bodhidharma Institute, Arhat Hall, and Prajna Hall would essentially be decided.

But soon, Abbot Tianjian could no longer take it.

Xuannan, Dragon Subduing Elephant Taming Art.

Xuanji, Great Strength Vajra Palm.

Xuanku, Dragon Subduing Elephant Taming Art.

Xuanbei, Dragon Subduing Elephant Taming Art.

Xuandu, Dragon Subduing Elephant Taming Art.

What the hell, are you messing with me??? If you aren't going to give me any, fine, but did you have to go so hard when you did?

Even after sixty years of Buddhist cultivation, Abbot Tianjian could not stomach it.

Do you think raising disciples doesn't cost money???

These eight had already become a massive headache regarding their daily food intake over the past two years. Led by Xuancheng, they each ate at least eight steamed buns per meal.

The buns at the Shaolin Temple weren't the fluffy, fermented kind; they were solid, weighing two catties each. Eight buns meant sixteen catties. In a single meal, these eight bottomless pits could consume 128 catties of flour, equivalent to one shi, which cost 280 wen.

And that was just the buns. Adding in vegetables, oil, salt, and the like—they had even started having to purchase vegetables from outside recently—it came to about another 260 wen.

A single meal cost 540 wen.

Per day, 1,620 wen.

Per month, 48,600 wen, which was nearly five guan, or five taels of silver.

In terms of living expenses, that was a huge sum, alright?

Of course, if it were just that, it wouldn't be a problem, but, oh, but.

Whether it was the Arhat Divine Art, the Great Strength Vajra Palm, or the Dragon Subduing Elephant Taming Art, none of them could be mastered just by burying one's head in practice.

The Great Strength Vajra Palm went without saying: external applications and internal tonics, blood circulation, body strengthening—a single set of prescriptions cost nearly 50 taels.

The Dragon Subduing Elephant Taming Art only required internal tonics, but they were no less valuable; a full course also cost 50 taels.

The two above were only enough for one month of use.

Finally, there was the Arhat Divine Art, which was the biggest drain of all. Blood Qi Pills, while not as precious as Great Restoration Pills, required ginseng, angelica, fleeceflower root, snow lotus, and the like to stimulate blood and qi. The price was not cheap; while a single furnace could produce a hundred pills, it cost a thousand taels of silver per batch.

In other words, these eight little brats had spent 5,200 taels of silver over the course of a year.

The Shaolin Temple had a large estate, but money didn't just fall from the sky. Plus, there were a pile of other monks to feed, house, and train; he couldn't just look after these eight, could he? The sheer scale of consumption over this year was a loss they simply couldn't afford! Faced with this result, Abbot Tianjian had recently started thinking about where to find new sources of revenue. Damn it, as the dignified Abbot of the Shaolin Temple, he had spent the last month not thinking about chanting sutras or cultivating Buddhism, but about how to make money?

That was just miserable!

Don't recommend any more.

Eight was already quite enough, truly enough.

Other sects only had one or two first-rate talents.

Had he not seen the Xiaoyao Sect? That old thing, the Xiaoyao Patriarch, had only trained three disciples before he stopped taking on students or building a sect, choosing instead to drift off overseas and never return.

It had to be said, although Li Su was very careful and did not try to change history, in reality, history had still been influenced by him and had shifted. Because Li Su didn't want to be exposed, he had created a persona of "work first, martial arts later," which resulted in the eight of them always being together. This left the other seven with a vast amount of time, and under mutual encouragement, their martial arts cultivation naturally rose with the tide.

Therefore, during this period, Tianjian felt a headache whenever he heard the name Tianming. If it weren't for the fact that he himself had been the one to suggest cultivating talented disciples to bolster the Shaolin Temple, he would have truly been unable to stop himself from cursing out loud.

Struggling to control his emotions, Abbot Tianjian took a breath and appeared calm. "What is it?"

"Xuankong has cultivated the Arhat Golden Body; it has already reached minor completion."

Tianjian's pupils constricted. Not to mention him, Tianwen and Tianxing, who were standing to the side, could not help but open their eyes.

Tianwen and Tianxing were the heads of the Bodhidharma Institute and the Discipline Hall, respectively.

Hearing that a disciple had mastered the Arhat Gong, they were both shocked and delighted. After all, it meant there were successors, right?

But how long had it been? Only a year, and he had already cultivated the Arhat Golden Body? This was, truly, extraordinary.

Could it be that the Shaolin Temple was about to produce a Wuyazi of its own?

"In that case, his supply of medicinal pills must be running out, right?"

"Yes."

"I understand. Junior Brother Tianwen, go notify Junior Brother Tianmo and have him fire up another furnace of Blood Qi... Hiss!"

As he spoke, Abbot Tianjian's expression contorted, and his words came to an abrupt halt.

Beside him, Tianwen and Tianxing exchanged a glance, then immediately fixed their eyes on their noses and their hearts on their meditation, remaining silent.

Did they not know the situation of the Shaolin Temple?

They knew!

This year, which had yet to end, they had already spent 5,200 taels of silver—that is, 520 taels of gold. Because of this, the original plan to renovate the Buddha statue in the Mahavira Hall by plating it in gold had been abandoned; in the end, they had only bought gold leaf to paste over it.

Amitabha. Sin, what a sin. Buddha, it is truly not a lack of sincerity, but rather that the heart is willing, yet the 'strength' is insufficient.

"Senior Brother?"

Tianming was stunned. Why had he stopped halfway through his sentence?

Abbot Tianjian gritted his teeth and turned to look at Tianwen.

Tianwen took a breath. As the head of the Bodhidharma Institute, he was in charge of the Shaolin Temple's finances.

"Senior Brother, there are currently only 186 taels of silver and 30 strings of copper coins left in the accounts. It is four months until the next collection of funds, and the Shaolin Temple's average monthly expenditure is about 40 strings of copper coins. As for medicinal herbs, we do not have enough to refine Blood Qi Pills; we need to restock."

Hiss...

In other words, the remaining money was not enough?

Abbot Tianjian couldn't help but twitch, feeling a sharp pain in his liver.

Tianming froze, finally understanding why his Senior Brother had stopped mid-sentence.

They were actually out of money!

He was instantly incensed. With such a massive foundation, how could the Shaolin Temple have so little money left? Senior Brother Tianjian, how exactly have you been managing the temple?

"Senior Brother, why does our Shaolin Temple have so little money left? With such a vast estate, the farmland alone..."

Tianjian's face darkened, and he interrupted directly: "Xuankong, Xuancheng, Xuanci, Xuanku, Xuannan, Xuandu, Xuanbei, and Xuanji—this year, those eight have spent 5,200 taels of silver."

Hiss—!?

Tianming was dumbfounded. 5,200 taels? In silver?

Although he didn't have much of a concept of money, he knew that 5,200 taels was certainly not a small amount—no, it was terrifyingly high.

Abbot Tianjian sighed, a look of melancholy on his face. "Sometimes, having too many talented disciples is not necessarily a good thing."

The others nodded almost in unison, especially Monk Tianwen, who looked as if he were still suffering from the trauma.

Damn it, they were just too expensive to maintain.

"Then what do we do?" Tianming was getting anxious. Xuankong's talent could not be left to waste; he was a future pillar of the Shaolin Temple.

After suffering through a toothache-like moment, Tianjian said, "Pass on other martial arts to him, and stop the current supply for now..." There was no choice; they couldn't afford it. Even if they drank nothing but water for the next four months, they couldn't afford the herbs he required. What was that? You say go dig for them yourself? Do you think ginseng is cabbage? That it grows everywhere? In this day and age, with so many sects, anything with even a bit of age has been dug clean. Why is wild ginseng from Changbai Mountain so popular? Because that place has few people and a large supply; otherwise, cold-climate ginseng isn't actually very suitable for certain medicinal pills.

Monk Tianming took a breath. After all, even the cleverest housewife cannot cook without rice. He thought for a moment and asked, "What shall we pass on?"

Tianjian rolled his eyes. It went without saying; the Shaolin Temple had so many ultimate techniques, any one of them would do.

Hiss!

Damn, it was actually hard to choose.

Since he could master the Arhat Divine Art, his talent went without saying. One had to know that the Arhat Golden Body itself possessed an extremely powerful adaptive ability. Once achieved, learning other martial arts was exceptionally fast. Simple ones might be mastered in a few days, but advanced ones would still cost money.

The Arhat Divine Art was already a massive drain on their funds; if they added more, it would truly be a headache. A whole year's income wasn't enough for just a few of them to cultivate.

"Pass on a finger technique. Finger techniques don't require internal energy to practice; they just need to be paired with profound internal energy later on. That works out perfectly."

Tianming thought about it and immediately understood the other's meaning. Finger techniques were different from others; mastering the form was enough, and future cultivation would depend on his own internal energy. Not only that, but Xuankong had been practicing for over three years and his cultivation was not bad—even Xuancheng couldn't compare—but his martial technique was undoubtedly lacking. Forget Xuancheng; even the weakest, Xuandu, was better than him. He nodded immediately and said, "Understood."